I had some misfortune in Canada. The numbers and some of the letters
on my eee PC became non functional. My rear rim began to crack so bad
that I was forced to buy a replacement. The rear derailleur shifter
jammed again. My cell phone hardly ever found a signal. And none of my
bank cards worked in the teller machines.

But other than that it was great fun, especially today when
we passed Niagara Falls. I'd seen the falls before, but not like this. Every
other time they seemed big to me. This time they seemed small. Still wonderful,
but small compared to the distances we have conquered.

It was supposed to be a relatively short day, but we ended up with 90
miles into the Erie canal town of Lockport. Some of those were "bonus
miles" spiraling around the entrance ramp of the Queenston Bridge,
our crossing back into the states.

The riding was easy. Almost half of it was along the Niagara River
on the bike trail. For the most part it was a decent trail, although
we did see some near incomprehensible warning signs.

After breakfast, we began stopping at bike shops in search of a
replacement wheel. Thirty-six spoke wheels were totally unavailable,
and most of the thirty two spoke wheels had no eyelets, let alone
double eyelets. I ended up choosing a less than ideal wheel not based
on its specs, but based on the fact that the bike shop selling it had a decent
restaurant nearby. Gary and I ate an excellent pizza as my wheel was
replaced.

Crossing the Queenston bridge was "interesting" in our eastbound directions.
The trick is not to follow the signs that say "Bridge to USA", which take you
on a six mile loop back to where you started. Instead, what you do is
to ride into the employee entrance to the toll plaza and ask the
bridge master for directions. We learned this trick after logging
the six bonus miles, but maybe some eastbound rider reading this will
benefit from our mistake.

We rode through some chutes
and merge ramps that dumped us into the leftmost (yes leftmost) lane where
we were instructed to ride. Customs was quick and easy. Back
in the USA! Ummm... not quite. We were actually on Seneca Indian land.